


how the mill grinds

by palmviolet



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, F/M, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:08:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25149721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palmviolet/pseuds/palmviolet
Summary: One night in early 1980, Joyce turns up on Karen’s doorstep, thin and pale with kids in tow. She’s tense and jumpy, afraid of her own shadow. (She should be. She’s lost track of where she ends and Lonnie’s version of her begins.) He might come back tonight. She can’t change the locks tonight. She has to keep her children safe.
Relationships: Jonathan Byers & Joyce Byers, Joyce Byers & Karen Wheeler, Joyce Byers/Jim "Chief" Hopper
Comments: 8
Kudos: 62





	how the mill grinds

One night in early 1980, Joyce turns up on Karen’s doorstep, thin and pale with kids in tow. She’s tense and jumpy, afraid of her own shadow. (She should be. She’s lost track of where she ends and Lonnie’s version of her begins.) He might come back tonight. She can’t change the locks tonight. She has to keep her children safe-

“Karen,” she says. One side of her face feels hot and swollen.

Karen is wearing a robe; her hair is long and loose around her shoulders. She looks at each of them with wide, sharp eyes, discerning, categorising. Joyce feels terribly exposed. 

“Can my boys stay here? Just for the night? Please-”

Without a word, Karen’s fingers wrap around her wrist and she tugs her in too. She sends Will to Mike’s room, Jonathan to the guest room, and brings Joyce into the kitchen to sit at the polished granite countertop and try not to flinch at the light. 

“Know any lawyers?” she jokes feebly, flatly, even though she knows Karen’s friends are far beyond her price range. (In her head she’s already running calculations - bills, gas, groceries for three on one salary. She’ll have to get another job, take on extra shifts at the store.)

Karen returns from the freezer and presses a pack of ice to her swollen cheekbone. “A few.” Her eyes are wide, and gentle. “Don’t worry about the cost.”

Joyce protests - of course she does, she’s never been a charity case - but Karen insists. (Joyce doesn’t know how she missed how stubborn the woman is.)

Ted’s away. thank god. Joyce isn’t blind, she knows the two are good friends. Knows Lonnie is _one of the boys._ Funny that the things making her an outcast - threadbare clothes, tired eyes from working too late, outdated bungalow at the edge of town - don’t seem to matter for him. Funny how she’s the crazy whore who tied him down. Funny how the mill grinds.

The ice has begun to melt. Cold water drips down Joyce’s skin, down her neck, and she shivers, but Karen doesn’t move away. There’s something silent bubbling under the woman’s skin, some rigid determination. Joyce could hold the ice pack herself. But she lets Karen do it.

Finally - “You should have told me.”

“What?”

“You should have told me it was this bad.”

“Karen-”

“You should have told me, Joyce, I mean- we’ve had coffee how many times in the last few months and you never even _mentioned_ it, Ted goes to the bar with Lonnie, they sometimes go to dinner, I don’t like that he’s-”

Joyce studies the pattern of the granite and digs her nails into her palm as she feels her eyes begin to sting. “It’s not that simple. You know it’s not that simple. Besides, it’s not like- like there aren’t _rumors-_ ”

“I try not to listen to rumors.” Karen’s voice is strangely tight; Joyce looks up. Her expression is unreadable. “Of course I’d heard them, I’m on the PTA, but maybe naively I assumed that- well, that you would talk to me.”

Joyce doesn’t know why she would assume that. Joyce doesn’t talk to anyone. She lets her feelings swallow her up until she’s drowning in them, until it’s like sitting at the bottom of a pool with the surface long since having closed over her head. Lonnie hitting her isn’t the worst thing in her life, not by a long stretch. Not at all.

“Sorry,” she says. Her voice is thin. “I should- I should go.”

“Go?” Karen looks alarmed. “Go home? You’re not going back to that house tonight. I refuse to let you do that.”

“I shouldn’t- this isn’t- he’s not gonna-”

“Joyce,” she says, so soft, and takes the ice away. Joyce blinks at her. Her cheek is numb. “You’re gonna stay, here, okay? You’re gonna stay here, and you’re gonna talk to me, and I’m gonna-”

If she says _look after you,_ Joyce thinks she might break completely. Clearly Karen sees this too, because she falls silent. They look at each other over the counter. Joyce doesn’t regret not telling her, not really. But it’s- 

It helps that she knows now.

Karen has two spare rooms. The bed feels bigger somehow, even though it’s the same size as hers at home. Joyce can’t sleep, even though the room is blissfully silent and not filled with Lonnie’s drunken snores. Then sometime after two Jonathan appears in the doorway, looking skinny and lonely, and slides into bed beside her.

“You okay?” she whispers into the dark.

“It’s gonna be different now, isn’t it?” His voice is small. 

“Things will be better. for all of us. I promise,” she says. She hopes she’s right. 

The next morning there’s a lawyer sitting at Karen’s breakfast bar. He’s got calm eyes and a slightly rumpled shirt, and Joyce thinks _I have to trust him._ He’s a friend of Ted’s from college, Karen explains. Her eyes narrow.

“He specialises in cases of domestic violence,” Karen continues quietly, as if that softens the blow. _Cases of domestic violence_ , like she’s a victim. A statistic.

She looks at the lawyer. She’s tired of this. It must be evident in her eyes, because he reels off a plan - logical, sensible, practical. He’ll draw up some papers and she’ll file them at the courthouse this afternoon. A plan of action. It feels better than Karen’s raw pity. (Though is it pity? Is it? It’s easier to label it that than whatever it really is that lingers in Karen’s eyes.)

She lists her demands. Full custody. Visitation every few months, if the boys ask for it. Child support - that’s a must. (She can barely support herself on Melvald’s puny paychecks, let alone two hungry, growing kids.) The lawyer nods and makes some notes. He asks her if Lonnie’s likely to challenge her for custody.

She scoffs. “He doesn’t give a shit about the boys. Maybe he loved me, once, but they’ve always just been burdens to him.”

The lawyer crosses something off his list with satisfaction. “Should be a simple case, then,” he says. She gives a bitter smile. It’s anything but simple.

Karen makes her breakfast, eggs and bacon and french toast, and nudges the plate towards her on the counter. She resists the urge to take out her near-empty packet of cigarettes instead, and takes a few bites just because Karen is looking at her like that. _That_ includes concern, like she thinks Joyce won’t eat unless she watches her (which, let’s face it, she probably won’t), and also something else.

This morning she looked in the mirror and saw that the bruises, red and angry yesterday, have deepened into an ugly purple. They form twilight brushstrokes on her skin, splashed in a half-circle around her eye socket. They’re hard to look away from, she knows that much. That’s why Karen is staring. (That’s why the lawyer was so nice to her.)

When she’s going back upstairs to change into clothes borrowed from Karen (clothes she could never afford, clothes that feel soft and rich to the touch), Jonathan appears on the stairs. His face is tight.

“We’ve always just been burdens to him? Is that true?”

Joyce’s stomach drops. She rubs her forehead and her hand finds the banister for support. “That- that’s not-“ She stops. He’s twelve, with all the wisdom and solemnity of nineteen. She can’t lie to him. “I’m sorry. You deserve so much better, both of you.”

She’s surprised when his arms wrap around her middle, holding her tight. “So do you, Mom. And he’s always been a crappy dad.” He steps back with watery eyes, and she doesn’t think to call him on his language. “We don’t need him. We’re gonna be fine on our own.”

After, when they’ve hugged it out and shed tears on each other’s shirts, she stares in the bathroom mirror with the concealer brush poised over her face. The bruises are bad. Worse than when she woke up this morning, she thinks. She gives her reflection a bitter look. 

Her hair is long, falling in vaguely greasy waves around her shoulders. She’s overdue a shower, but she can’t bring herself to, not in Karen’s expensive bathroom with her luxury shampoo. She’s bone-tired.

(Flashes race through her head - Lonnie grabbing her by the hair, slamming her against the wall, calling her _bitch whore crazy._ The _slap_ of his hand on Will’s cheek, reverberating over and over. She sees it a thousand times and at a thousand angles, imagines grabbing his shotgun from the shed and firing it at his head before he can even _look_ at Will wrong.)

She presses the brush to her skin - then she hesitates. She’s going to the courthouse this afternoon. Lonnie won’t challenge her, she knows he won’t, but-

It wouldn’t hurt to have the extra proof.

Besides, she thinks when she’s walking up the steps later, the people staring and whispering around her, she’s done covering for his shitty ass. See how he likes it when she airs his dirty laundry. Shows the world the marks she’s been hiding for years.

The officials, the bureaucrats - they don’t question her. When one man quirks an eyebrow like he’s about to, she just sweeps the hair out of her eyes to emphasise the _state_ of her fucking face - look at me, do I look like a woman who’s safe in her own home? Do I look like a woman who wants to be fucked with? 

As she’s leaving, she almost collides with Jim Hopper, his tall bulk unavoidable in the narrow corridor. He looks down at her, notices the bruises, the papers in her hand. “You’re finally leaving the asshole, huh?”

She juts out her chin defiantly. “So what if I am? It’s got nothing to do with you- with anyone.”

He shrugs. “Good for you, is all. I’m glad, Joyce, really I am.”

She stares up at him warily. He looks a ragged mess, and there’s a mark peering from under his collar that, judging by the rumors flying around lately, is probably a hickey. But his eyes are gentle and kind, and doesn’t that make a nice change? Doesn’t that make her feel just a tiny bit better?

“You got any cigarettes?” she says, before she can change her mind. He blinks at her slowly, hazily, like he’s not quite present, but the way his face lights up tells her she hasn’t made a mistake. The somber tug of his brow eases, if for only a moment.

“You won’t like ‘em,” he warns, following her around to the side of the courthouse. The day is cool and blustery, blowing her hair around her face, and she brushes it back with impatient hands. She sees him looking, staring, studying the purple patterns of bruises- and she looks away. Takes his cigarette. And he’s right - it’s fucking disgusting. She chokes on it.

“Jesus Christ, you must have lungs made of steel,” she says, when she can finally speak again. 

He chuckles, looks off in the distance, out at the street. “A leftover from ‘Nam. The guys out there called you a pussy if you smoked anything less, and the beat cops in New York weren’t much better.”

She takes another drag. It’s fierce, painful, that’s true. But it’s something she could get used to, she thinks. Something she could come to enjoy. “You’re a bad influence,” she mutters. She’s not sure if she meant him to hear it, but he does, and looks at her with eyes too sad for his face.

“Diane thought so too,” he says softly, and that she’s sure he didn’t mean to say aloud. She stares at him - does she respond? Commiserate with her own fucked up marriage, her own fucked up life? Or does she let it go, let it float off on the frosty breeze?

“Jesus,” she settles for, says again without looking at him. She suddenly can’t bear to have his cigarette in her mouth, his presence by her side. Can’t bear to be heard, to be seen. It only reminds her of all she’s lost - Hopper’s easy smile, his warm hands as he draped his leather jacket over her shoulders, his hot, unpracticed kiss. Her own youth, independence, stability. She wants to go home and curl up in the sheets in the dark, to stand under the scalding shower until she forgets she has a body at all. Hopper’s been through so much, it’s obvious to anyone who so much as looks at him - is all but carved with a knife on his forehead - and it only serves to remind her of her own painful losses. Her own agonising defeats. 

She hands him back his cigarette like she can’t wait to be rid of it, and shivers at the brush of his hand. “I- um- I gotta go.”

He looks at her with a kind of frank desperation that’s almost embarrassing on his proud, patrician face. “We should get a drink sometime,” he suggests. It’s vague, hopeless. On the off chance. “And hey, let me know if Lonnie gives you any trouble. I got a cell with his name on it down the station.”

She matches his tone with a vague smile of her own. “Sure. Thanks.” They both know she won’t take him up on it, on either score. She fights her own battles, even the ones she loses. She’s always been remarkably good at finding hills to die on.

**Author's Note:**

> i may well write a sequel to this and we may well delve into joyren territory ajsksks but for now, have this and please tell me what you think!!


End file.
